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Wild Horses DANCER TURNED ARTIST LYDIA JANSSEN’S OF SELF-DISCOVERY AT REDSEA GALLERY BY TANYA MICHELE AMADOR

American artist Lydia Janssen makes her Singapore debut with her latest body of Left to right: being, just to name a few, are woven works at REDSEA Gallery, located at Dempsey Hill, opening 27 January 2018 and Lydia Janssen, together in abstract expressionist form ‘La Jeune Homme running till 25 February 2018. et la Mort’, with figurative elements. 2017; Portrait of Appropriately titled ‘All the King’s Horses’, the exhibition is an autobiographical Lydia Janssen “Humpty gets up, falls again and so on, series of short-story paintings presented on large canvases. Narrating the ongoing and so on…. learning lessons, finding challenges of her artistic practice and personal development, this collection beauty in the unbeautiful, order in the represents a passage of time spanning the last five years since the dancer-turned- disarray, true grit, changing course and artist relocated to Singapore from . moving through life,” Janssen notes, as the viewer is enticed to examine As a former professional dancer with Studio in New York City further ideas which are sometimes who performed with modern dance troupes Pam Tanowitz Dance Company and erotic or manic, but also delightful Jordana Toback/POON Dance Company, Janssen suffered life-altering injuries and moving, as they find their own which left her permanently unable to dance. She subsequently spent a year in meaning in Janssen’s mad dance of the Graduate Fine Arts Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, personal discovery. Inspiringly, unlike before returning to New York to study at the Art Students League (2005-07). Humpty Dumpty, she is putting herself Finding solace in her new creative outlet, she began to spread her wings, and in back together again, without any help her final year, won the prestigious Red Dot award for Excellence in . from the king’s horses, or his men, one canvas at a time. Likening her body and its movements to that of Humpty Dumpty, the creature of the English nursery rhyme who fell off the wall, her fluid brushstrokes on her Janssen’s work is held in private canvas elucidate the raw and beautiful turmoil of attempting to put herself back collections, and has been exhibited at together again after her injuries. Inviting the viewer to contemplate her emotional several art fairs and gallery exhibits and corporeal journey from dancer to painter, ‘All the King’s Horses’ is a heartfelt throughout the , story about Janssen’s relationship with her body and its moving parts, with the Hong Kong, and Singapore. She is works taking on a life of their own which are at once powerful and meaningful. represented by the Susan Eley Fine Art Gallery in New York City and REDSEA A follower of strong women who lead the world of feminist artists, such as Gallery in Singapore. Cecily Brown and Tracy Emin, Janssen encourages the viewer to observe the disorder of her rebirth through a tangible authenticity. The use of earthy, clay- like, colour tones of ochre, amber and mustard, mixed with vivid shades of blues and greens, evoke a soft reminiscence of the cave-like drawings of Willem and Elaine de Kooning and illuminate a complex thought process.

Capturing the primal movements which she now plays out in her mind instead of More information at her body, each work offers a rich tapestry of body parts. Breasts, arms, phalli and redseagallery.com. feet, animals including horses and cows, numbers, guns, and other seemingly arbitrary symbols of sex, relationships, and the soul of the artist as a separate 103